The Mystery of the Ravenspurs
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The bodies were laid out there and the key turned upon them. Geoffrey looked at his companions and inquired what was to be done next.
"Inform the head of the house and send for the police", Tchigorsky said; "so far as I can see, it will be impossible to keep the matter a secret. Nor are we to blame. Those men came here for no good purpose, and we took steps to prevent them from entering the house.
"Unfortunately, we forgot there would be an exceptionally high tide to-day, and consequently they have paid the penalty of their folly. But we can't bury these two fellows as we did the others."
"Hadn't we better search them?" Ralph suggested. "They came in response to the note sent them by their mistress. The note was opened and read. One of them is sure to have the letter on his person."
"Then let the police find it," Tchigorsky said promptly. "It will be the link in the evidence that we require. When you and I come to tell our story, Ralph, and the police find that letter, the net around Princess Zara will be complete. I have only to produce that diary and the case is finished."
Ralph nodded approval. Five minutes later and the head of the house, seated over a book in the library, was exceedingly astonished to see Ralph and Geoffrey, followed by Tchigorsky, enter the room.
He swept a keen glance over their faces; he saw at once they had news of grave import for him.
"I do not understand," he said. "Dr. Tchigorsky, I am amazed. I was under the impression that you were dead and buried."
"Other people shared the same opinion, sir," Tchigorsky said coolly. "The great misfortune of another man was my golden opportunity. It was necessary for certain people to regard me as dead – your enemies particularly. But perhaps I had better explain."
"It would be as well," Ravenspur murmured.
Tchigorsky proceeded to clear the mystery of Voski's death. He had to tell the whole story, beginning at Lassa and going on to the end. Ravenspur listened with the air of a man who dreams. To a man used all his life to the quiet life of an English shire it seemed impossible to believe that such things could be. And why should these people persecute him; why should they come here? What did those men mean by drowning themselves in the vaults?
"They came here at the instigation of Mrs. May," Tchigorsky said.
"But I don't see how that lady comes to be in it at all."
"You will in a minute," said Tchigorsky grimly. "You will when I tell you that Mrs. May and Princess Zara are one and the same person." Ravenspur gasped. The bare idea of having such a woman under his roof filled him with horror. Even yet he could not understand his danger.
"But why does she come?" he demanded. "For revenge on you two?"
"Oh, no. My being here was a mere coincidence. Of course, the princess would have removed me sooner or later. Ralph, strange to say, she does not recognize at all, possibly because he has disguised himself with such simple cleverness. Princess Zara came here to destroy your family."
"In the name of Heaven, why?"
"Partly for revenge, partly for money. I told you all about her husband, who was an English officer. I told you why she had married him. When she discovered the papers she wanted, then she killed him and returned to her own people, giving out that she and her husband had perished up country in a fearful cholera epidemic. She wanted money. Why not kill off her husband's family one by one so that finally the estates should come to her? Mr. Ravenspur, surely you have guessed who was the English officer Princess Zara married?"
Ravenspur staggered back as before a heavy blow. The illuminating flash almost stunned him. He fell gasping into a chair.
"My son, Jasper," he said hoarsely. "That fiend is his widow."
"And Marion's mother," Ralph croaked.
Geoffrey was almost as much astonished as his grandfather. He wondered why he had not seen all this before. Once explained, the problem was ridiculously simple. Ravenspur covered his face with his hands.
"Marion must not know," he said. "It would kill her."
"She knows already," Tchigorsky said. "That woman has great influence over her child. And the idea was for the child to get everything. The others were to be killed off until she was the only one left. With this large fortune at command Zara meant to be another Queen of Sheba. And she would have succeeded, too."
Ravenspur shuddered. He was torn by conflicting emotions. Perhaps tenderness and sympathy for Marion were uppermost. How much did she know? How much had she guessed? Was she entirely in the dark as to her mother's machinations, or had she come resolved to protect the relatives as much as possible?
Ravenspur poured out these questions one after another. Tchigorsky could or would say nothing to relieve the other's feelings on these points.
"What you ask has nothing to do with the case," he said. "I have proved to you, I am prepared to prove in any court of law, how your family has been destroyed and who is the author of the mischief.
"She is under your roof, where she is powerless to move. Her two confederates lie dead in the vaults yonder. I have already explained to you how it came about that the princess is here and how her infernal apparatus failed. It now remains to call in the police."
"There will be a fearful scandal," Ravenspur groaned.
Tchigorsky glanced at him impatiently. The cosmopolitan knew a great many things that were sealed books to Ravenspur – in point of knowledge it was as a child alongside a great master; but Tchigorsky knew nothing of family pride.
"Which will be forgotten in a week," he said emphatically. "And when the thing is over you will be free again. You cannot realize what that means as yet."
"No," Ravenspur said. "I cannot."
"Nevertheless, you can see for yourself that what I say is a fact," Tchigorsky resumed. "And as a county magistrate and a deputy-lieutenant you would hardly venture to suggest that we should bury those bodies and say nothing to anybody about it?"
Ravenspur nodded approval. A few minutes later a groom was carrying a note to the police inspector at Alton. Ravenspur turned to Tchigorsky with a manner more genial than he usually assumed.
"I have forgotten to thank you," he said. "And you, Ralph, have saved the house. If you can forget the past – " He said no more, but his hand went out. Ralph seemed to divine it and pressed it closely. There was no word uttered on either side. But they both understood and Ralph smiled. Geoffrey had never seen his uncle smile before. The expression of his face was genial, almost handsome. His wooden look had utterly disappeared and nobody ever saw it again. The transformation of Ralph Ravenspur was not the least wonderful incident of the whole mysterious affair.
The door opened and Vera came lightly into the room.
"What does all this mystery mean?" she asked. "Geoffrey, you are – Dr. Tchigorsky!"
The last words came with a scream that might have been heard all over the house. Tchigorsky closed the door and proceeded rapidly to explain. But it was not the full explanation he had given to the others. There was time enough for that.
Vera was too bewildered to ask questions. At a sign from Geoffrey she slipped from the room. Then she recollected that she had come downstairs on an errand of mercy. She promised to get a cup of tea for the woman whom she still knew as Mrs. May. She procured the tea from the drawing room and, in a dazed kind of state made her way up the stairs again.
Mrs. May was sitting up in bed. There was a pink spot on either cheek and her dark eyes were blazing.
"I hope nothing is wrong," she said. "It might have been my fancy, but it seemed to me that I heard you call Tchigorsky's name at the top of your voice."
The suggestion was made with a fervent earnestness that the woman could not repress. But Vera did not notice it.
"I did," she said. "I walked into the library, hearing voices there, and in a chair Dr. Tchigorsky was seated. No wonder that I cried out. It was a fearful shock. And when he began to talk I could not believe the evidence of my senses."
"Then who was it that was buried?"
The woman asked the question mechanically. She knew perfectly well what the reply would be; she knew that she had been discovered at last, and that the murder of Voski had been turned to good purpose by Tchigorsky. And she knew now who her new ally, Ben Heer, really was.
"Dr. Voski," Vera explained. "I have been hearing all about Lassa and a certain Princess Zara, who seems to be a dreadful wretch. But I fear that I am exciting you. And you haven't drunk your tea."
The woman gulped down her tea and then fell back on her bed, closing her eyes. She wanted to be alone, to have time to think. Danger had threatened her before, but not living, palpitating peril like this. Vera crept away and the woman rose again, but she could not get from her bed.
Passionate, angry tears filled her eyes.
"That man has beaten me," she groaned. "It is finished for good and all. But their revenge will not be of long duration."
CHAPTER LVI
MARION COMES BACK
The police had more or less taken possession of Ravenspur. They were everywhere asking questions that Tchigorsky took upon himself to answer.
As he had expected, the note carried by Vera and deposited in the farmhouse garden had been found on one of the bodies. The inspector of police was an intelligent man, and he fell in with everything that Tchigorsky suggested.
"Of course you can't read this book," said the Russian as he handed over the fateful diary for safe custody, "but there are one or two Oriental scholars in London who will bear out my testimony. Have you any doubt?"
"Personally not the least," the inspector replied. "You say it is impossible for that woman to get away?"
"Absolutely impossible. She is safe for days."
"Then in that case there is no need to arrest her. That will have to come after the inquest on these men, which we shall hold to-morrow. And what a sensation the case will make! If I had read this thing in a book I should have laughed at it. And now we must have a thorough search for those electrical appliances."
It was long past dinner-time before the police investigations were finished. Aided by Tchigorsky a vast amount of mechanical appliances was found, including the apparatus that was to do so much harm to the Ravenspurs, and which had ended in wrecking the schemes of their arch-enemy.
"Inquest at ten to-morrow, sir," the inspector remarked to Ravenspur. "I am very sorry, but we shall not trouble you more than we can help."
Ravenspur shook his head sadly. He was not particularly versed in the ways of the law, but he could see a long case ahead; and he was beginning to worry about Marion. It was nearly ten o'clock now and the girl had not returned.
It would be a sad home-coming for the girl, but they would all do what they could for her. Everybody appeared to be duly sympathetic except Ralph, who said nothing. Tchigorsky seemed to have obliterated himself entirely.
Geoffrey had retired to the billiard-room, where Vera followed him. They started a game, but their nerves were in no condition to finish it. Cues were flung down and the lovers stood before the fireplace.
"What are you thinking about?" Geoffrey asked.
Vera looked up dreamingly. She touched Geoffrey's cheek caressingly. She looked like one who is happy and yet at the same time ashamed of her own happiness.
"Of many things, pleasant and otherwise," she said. "I am still utterly in the dark myself, but those who know tell me that the shadow has lifted forever. That in itself is so great a joy that I dare not let my mind dwell upon it as yet. To think that we may part and meet again, to think – But I dare not let my mind dwell upon that. But what has Mrs. May to do with it?"
Vera was not behind the scenes as yet. Still, within a few hours the thing must come out. What the family regarded as a nurse had been procured for the invalid, a nurse who really was a female warder in disguise, and Ravenspur had sternly given strict orders that nobody was to go near that room. He vouchsafed no reason why; he gave the order and it was obeyed.
Then Geoffrey told Vera everything. He went through the whole story from the very beginning. Vera listened as one in a dream. Such wickedness was beyond her comprehension. Awful as the cloud was that had long hung over the house of Ravenspur, Vera had not imagined it to be lined with such depravity as this.
"And so that inhuman wretch is Marion's mother?" said Vera. "The child of a creature who deliberately murdered a husband and tried to destroy his family so that she could get everything into her hands! No wonder that Marion has been a changed creature since this Mrs. May has been about! How I pity her anguish and condition of mind! But had Marion a sister?"
"Not that I ever heard of. Why?"
"I was thinking of that other girl, the girl so like Marion that you were talking about just now. What has become of her?"
Geoffrey shook his head. He had forgotten that most mysterious personage. It was more than likely, he explained, that Tchigorsky would know. Not that it much mattered. The two were silent for some little time, then a peal of laughter from the drawing-room caused them to smile.
"My mother," said Vera. "I have not heard her laugh like that for years. Does it not seem funny to realize that before long we shall be laughing and chatting and moving with the world once more, Geoff? I should like to leave Ravenspur and have a long, long holiday on the Continent."
Geoffrey stooped and kissed her.
"So you shall, sweet," he said. "We can be married now. And when we come back to Ravenspur it will be the dear old home I recollect in my childhood's days. Vera, you and I shall be the happiest couple in the world."
They went back to the drawing room again. Here the elders were conversing quietly yet happily. There was an air of cheerful gaiety upon them that the house had not know for many a long day.
Gordon Ravenspur was impressing upon his father the necessity of looking more sharply after the shooting. The head of the family had before him some plans of new farm buildings.
It was marvelous what a change the last few hours had wrought. And the author of all the sorrow and anguish was upstairs guarded by eyes that never tired.
"How bright and cheerful you look," Vera said. "It only wants one thing to make the picture complete. You can guess, dear grandfather."
"Marion," Ravenspur said. "Marion, of course."
"She will come back," Ralph murmured. "Marion will return. We know now that no harm could come to the girl. I should not wonder if she were not on her way home this very moment."
Half an hour passed, an hour elapsed, and yet no Marion. They were all getting uneasy but Ralph, who sat doggedly in his chair. Then there was a commotion outside, the door opened, and Marion came in.
She looked pale and uneasy. She glanced from one to the other with frightened eyes. It was easy to see that she was greatly moved and, moreover, was not sure as to the warmth of her reception. But she might have made her mind easy on that score. All rose to welcome her.
"My dear, dear child," Vera cried. "Where have you been?"
Vera fluttered forward and took off Marion's cloak. All seemed to be delighted. Marion dropped into a chair with quivering smile. Ralph had felt his way across to her and stood by the side of her chair.
"I fancied I had made a discovery," she said. "It occurred to me perhaps – . But don't let us talk about myself. Has anything happened here?"
"Much," Ralph cried. "Great things. The mystery is solved."
"Solved?" Marion gasped. "You have found the culprit?"
"The culprit is in the house. She is Mrs. May. I prefer to call her Princess Zara; and yet again I might call her Mrs. Ravenspur, wife of the late Jasper Ravenspur. Marion, we have found your mother."
Marion said nothing. Her head had fallen forward and she sat swaying in her chair. There was a hard yet pleading look in her eyes. Ralph bent down and drew her none too tenderly to her feet.
"The she-wolf is yonder, the cub is here," he cried. "Are you going to speak or shall I tell the story? Speak, or let me do so." Ravenspur sprang forward angrily.
"What are you doing?" he cried. "To lay hand on that angel – "
"Ay," said Ralph, "an angel truly, but a fallen one – Lucifer in the dust."
CHAPTER LVII
HAND AND FOOT
What did it mean? Why was there all this commotion in the house? And why did everybody leave her so severely alone? These were the questions that Princess Zara, otherwise Mrs. May, otherwise Mrs. Jasper Ravenspur, asked herself. And why had Marion not returned?
Oh, it was bitter to lie there fettered hand and foot at the very moment when activity and cunning and action were most imperatively needed. And Tchigorsky was not dead. How she had been tricked and fooled!
Fate had played against her. Who could have anticipated that Voski would have come to Ravenspur and met his death there! By this time the sham Ben Heer had all necessary proofs in his hands.
The door opened and a resolute-looking woman came in. Her garb was something of the hospital type, yet more severe and plainer. She came in and took her place with the air of one who watches a prisoner.
"I do not require your services," the adventuress said coldly.
"It is immaterial, madame," was the equally cold reply. "I am sent here to do my duty whether you require my services or not."
"Indeed! Am I to regard myself as a prisoner, then?"
The other bowed. The bolt had fallen. There was nothing for it but to submit quietly. By this time Tchigorsky's proofs were in possession of the police. The prisoner smiled grimly as she thought how she could escape her foes yet.
"What is the confusion in the house?" she asked. "What is your name?"
"My name is Symonds. I was fetched here by the inspector of police. The bodies of two Asiatics have been found drowned in the vaults, and they are getting ready for the inquest to-morrow."
Once again the defeated murderess smiled. Fate was all against her. Those men had come to do her bidding and had perished. Doubtless the note sent by Vera Ravenspur would be found on one of them, and this would be no more than another link in the long chain.
She tried to rise but she could not. She lay on the bed fully dressed, her brain was as quick and as clear as ever, but the paralysis in the lower limbs fettered her. A blind fury shook her for the moment.
If she had only been free to move she would have triumphed even yet. Tchigorsky might have been a clever man, but she would have shown him that he was no match for her. And now she had walked into the trap he had laid for her. Doubtless she had been watched into the castle; doubtless the enemy had seen her lay those wires, and had arranged to give her a taste of that deadly stuff she had prepared for others. Then Marion had been spirited away, and the key of the safe taken from her. Subsequently Tchigorsky had ransacked the box. Oh, she saw it all.
The family of Ravenspur saw it all by this time, too. She was no longer a guest in the house of Ravenspur, but a prisoner in charge of a female warder. In a day or two she would be cast into prison. In due course she would undergo her trial and finally be hanged by the neck until she were dead.
It was this last thought that caused her to smile. She was too clever a woman not to accept the inevitable. A great many people in her position would have protested and lied and blustered. She saw the folly of it.
"I should like to see Mr. Ravenspur," she said. "Will you tell him so? You need not fear. I am helpless. I could not move."
Mrs. Symonds stepped into the corridor and gave the message to a passing servant. After a time a slow step came shuffling along up the stairs. It was Ralph, who presently came into the room.
"You can leave us for a little time," he said.
Symonds discreetly disappeared. She passed into the corridor. The woman in the bed opened her mouth to speak, but stopped in astonishment. Ralph's glasses were gone, and the smooth unguents had disappeared from his face. Those cruel criss-cross lines stood out with startling distinctness.
"You wanted to see my father?" he said. "My father declines to see you in any circumstances. Perhaps I shall do as well."
"You, you are one of the men I saw at Lassa." The words came from the woman's lips with a gasp. She had never been so astonished in all her life.
"Yes, I was the other one," Ralph said coolly. "I had to disguise myself when I found out you were in England. There is no longer any need for disguise. I hope you are delighted to see me, my dear sister-in-law."
"Oh, so you know that also?"
"You may take it for granted that I knew everything."
There was a long pause before the woman spoke again.
"I need not ask what opinion you have formed of me?"
"You are perhaps the most depraved wretch who ever drew the breath of life," said Ralph, slowly and without emotion. "To your ambition and what you call your religion you are prepared to sacrifice everything. You deliberately murdered the man who loved you."
"Your brother, Jasper. I admit it. Perhaps you will find it impossible to believe that I loved him. But I did with my whole heart and soul. I loved him and I killed him. Does it not sound strange? But this is the fact. I had to do it – for the sake of my people and my religion I had to do it. When I recovered those papers I slew him as he knew I would. He was the only thing on earth that I had to care for."
"Oh! Had you not a daughter?"
The woman made a gesture of contempt.
"A poor creature," she said. "But I brought her up in the strong faith I follow, and so she has not been without her uses. Not that she knows anything of the Holy Temple and the ceremonial there. I never told her about the two men who escaped along the Black Valley. If I had I should have known you to be a worthy antagonist instead of a half-witted fool, and then you would never have brought me to this pass. Oh, if I had only told her that!"
There was a passionate ring in the woman's voice. It was the first time during the interview that she had displayed any humanity.
"You didn't and there is an end of it," Ralph said. "Go on."
"Is there any need to go on? I have failed and there is an end of the matter. When my husband died my feelings were turned to rage and hatred of you all."
"Why should you all live and prosper while he was dead?" said Mrs. May. "With your money I could do anything among my own people. I could found a new dynasty. Did I not possess the occult knowledge of the East with a thorough knowledge of what you are pleased to call Western civilization? I could do it. A little longer and your wealth would have come to my child; in other words, it would have come to me. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Perfectly. I have understood for some time. Before I returned to England I had an idea of what was at the bottom of the vendetta. But you would not have succeeded. Tchigorsky and myself made up our minds that if we could not bring the crimes home to you we would shoot you."
Ralph spoke with a grim coldness that was not without its effect upon the listener. Hard as she was, the sentiment was after her own heart.
"That would have been murder," she said.
"Perhaps so. In the cold, prosaic eyes of the law we might have been regarded as criminals of the type you mention; but we did not propose to pay any deference to the law. Nor would our deed have been discovered. You would simply have disappeared; we should have shot you and thrown your body into the sea. And I don't fancy that the deed would have weighed very heavily on the conscience of either of us."
The woman smiled. Nothing seemed to disturb her. She was full of passionate fury against the decrees of fate, but she did not show it.
"I suppose you planned everything out?" she asked.
"Everything; Tchigorsky and myself between us. It was Tchigorsky who rescued my nephew after your familiar in the blue dress and red hat had cut the mast and sculls. We guessed that the search for Geoffrey would empty the house, and that you would take advantage of the fact.
"Geoffrey and I watched you laying those wires. It was I who saw that you had a taste of the poison. I wanted to lay you by the heels here while Tchigorsky overhauled your possessions. Your messenger was waylaid and robbed of your key. Also I opened the letter you sent by my niece so that your confederates might be summoned to your assistance."